Wish list for Xubuntu 13.04

[Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

On torstai 29 marraskuu 2012, PK wrote:
> As suggested by ochosi on IRC, I would like to discuss this wish list
> for Xubuntu 13.04 with you:
> 
> 1. LibreOffice in the iso instead of Abiword and Gnumeric. Xubuntu is
> a full fledged alternative for the big boys Unity, Gnome and KDE. So
> it needs to have a professional office suite by default. Note that I
> *like* Abiword; heck, I even translate it upstream. But it's natural
> place is in a mini like Lubuntu...

What are the advantages of LibreOffice compared to Abiword and Gnumeric,
is there anything else besides better (but not perfect) compatibility
with Microsoft Office?

Downsides of LibreOffice:
- Starts very slowly
- Uses a lot of memory
- Huge disk usage with lots of otherwise redundant dependencies
  - it for example brings in Java
- Isn't IMHO integrated as nicely to the desktop (help etc)


Generally I almost always prefer using Gnumeric over LOCalc,
as in my experience Gnumeric works better for the basic spreadsheet
stuff.  While it loads Excel spreadsheets OK, they might not look
that good.

AFAIK Abiword got support for multi-user document editing
from OLPC project, which is a feature completely missing
from LibreOffice, isn't it?


Another alternative is to document better how user can add
extra software after installation.  There could even be an icon
on the desktop that opens software center to LibreOffice.

(With icon comment stating something about MS-office compatibility)


> 2. Synaptic and GDebi in the iso. Especially Synaptic is such a cool
> professional tool...

Would this be in addition to Ubuntu software center?

(While that is pretty and provides user reviews,
it's so slow that half the time I use Synaptic.)


> Of course you can install it afterwards. But first impressions are
> important: the default installation of Xubuntu should be a powerful
> statement about it's coolness.

Coolness isn't the first thing that springs to mind from MS-office
and stuff that's compatible to it.

I would associate that more with stuff that is geared towards artists
and creativity in general; graphics, sound, music, animation,
3d modeling and science software.

Examples of this kind of software are: gimp, audacity, hydrogen,
qsynth & vmpk, synfig, blender, stellarium etc.


Unfortunately a lot of music SW brings in Qt libraries and soundfonts
can be pretty large too.  Qsynth & VMPK are pretty cool though,
you can play e.g. multitimbral church organ with your keyboard. :-)

(Horgand gives even better organ sound, but that requires Jack.)


> I suppose this would mean a DVD iso instead of a CD iso. But CD's are
> dying anyway; when I go to a store, it's nearly all DVD+R and DVD+RW
> that I see on the shelves. Somewhere tucked away you can still find
> CD-R's, if you're lucky.

In my experience Xubuntu & Gnome DVD (ISO) burning software is too buggy
to change the distribution to DVD images.  Whenever I try them, I get
DVD frisbees, KDE's K3b is the only SW with which I've reliably gotten DVD
images burned.

(I haven't tried DVD-burning with the latest 12.x (X)Ubuntu releases,
but I've tried with several different machines / CD-drives.)


	- Eero